Tiny Space Mudroom | How to Design and Build

I'm a big believer in mudrooms. When I redid my entryway in my California condo, it completely changed how my home functioned. Things were put away as I walked in the door, instead of scattered throughout my kitchen and living area. I was an organized human. I always knew where my keys were. Things were good.

So therefore, one of my primary goals after buying a new home was making a mudroom. Since I always entered at the back door, the mudroom was really more of a small mud-area (this is a terrible name; Lets go with "drop zone,") off the kitchen. Regardless, I thought I could make it work.

There was a door to the basement across from the exterior wall. It needed space to fully open, so I only had about 10" from the exterior wall to play with. This meant no benches or "lockers" or other bulky things. Knowing this, I started my plan.

I first listed out all the things I wanted to store in the space. The list below is specifically for the exterior wall; I had another list for the tool organizer.

I then thought about how it would be best to store these things. Coupons and receipts could go in a file organizer, while gloves and scarves would be better off in a box. Jackets, keys, and my purse could all go on hooks. I also wanted a shoe area to store my most used shoes.

I then drew out a design. I tried to draw it to scale (I'm kind of obsessed with graph paper spiral notebooks!), but ended up making minor changes to the positioning as I mounted things on the wall. I also erased things lots of times (you can see it in the picture below,) clearly I'm indecisive.

Once I had a decent draft, it was time to begin!

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Small Space Drop Zone

Materials

- Beadboard, cut to size- Piece of trim, cut to size- Construction Adhesive- Piece of wood- Hooks- File Organizers- You can see the full tutorial here. On the third and fourth organizers, I used straight instead of angled sides. This resulted in the gloves/scarves box and the shoe box.- Tool Organizer- Super proud of how this turned out. You can see the full tutorial here.- Brad Nails- Welcome Home Sign

Step 1: Attach the Beadboard

I had my beadboard cut to the size I wanted (36 3/4" by 56") at Home Depot, so it was super easy to just put some construction adhesive on the back and nail it to the wall. As an exciting side note, I got this four pack of Titebond adhesive at Menards for 99 cents after rebate. I was super pumped about this, and have made a mental note that it sometimes goes on crazy sale. If you live by a Menards, take note!

I also added screws where I knew I would be putting trim, and made sure these screws hit the studs. I did this because I knew I'd be attaching things to the beadboard, and I wanted to make sure that the beadboard could bear the weight of the accessories.

Step 2: Attach the Trim

I cut my trim to the same length as the beadboard (36 3/4") and attached it to the beadboard with construction adhesive and brad nails.

Step 3: Caulk, Wood Fill, and Paint Beadboard

Caulk works miracles people. In my opinion, lack of caulk is the biggest indicator of a DIY project, so I made sure to fill in all my gaps (sides, bottom, and top) with caulk. Additionally, I wood filled all of the brad nail holes with wood filler so that they wouldn't be seen. I then painted the beadboard.

After painting!

Step 4: Add Organizers

I went into detail on different ways to attach the organizers in the file organizer post, but in this situation I attached the small organizers with brad nails and construction adhesive, and the larger organizers with screws that I later disguised with paint. I was able to get at least one screw for the shoe box and the wood hook piece into a stud, which was ideal since both of these boxes might hold heavier things at some point.

Cost Considerations

Item

Cost

Total

$72.70

Less than $100 for a fully function entryway, and more than half of that was for the tool organizer! I consider that an organizational win!

Final Thoughts

It's amazing how much more organized a functional entryway makes me feel. I keep all my project receipts in folders in one of the file organizers, so that I'm ready to take back anything I don't use. I'm so much less worried about losing them now; it's crazy.

I love my new entryway! Have you ever done a project that makes you feel 100% more organized? Let me know about it in the comments!

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Hi there, I'm Lindsay Fay - Math teacher on temporary hiatus to transform my 100 year old house into the perfect home. Click around to join me in learning how to build, decorate and (sometimes!) destroy your way to a beautiful house.